Jim Matheson (D) was elected to the newly drawn district in the general election on November 6, 2012. He defeated Mia Love (R) and Jim Vein (L) for the seat.[1]

Candidate Filing Deadline

Primary Election

General Election

March 16, 2012

June 26, 2012

November 6, 2012

Primary: Utah has a mixed primary system, with Republicans having a closed primary and Democrats having an open one. Both parties hold conventions prior to the primaries.

Voter registration: Voters had to register to vote in the primary by October 7, 2011 or October 22, 2011 in-person. For the general election, voter registration deadlines were October 7, 2012 and October 22, 2012 in-person.[2]

Candidates

Note: Election results were added on election night as races were called. Vote totals were added after official election results had been certified. For more information about Ballotpedia's election coverage plan, click here. If you find any errors in this list, please email: Geoff Pallay.

According to the website Daily Kos, this race was one of nine top-ballot 2012 races that contained Libertarian candidates who received more total votes than was the difference between the Democratic winner and the GOP runner-up. In this case, Jim Vein took in over 3,000 more votes than the number that separated Matheson and Love.[6]

General election

Competitiveness

Utah's 4th was considered to be a Tossup according to the New York Times race ratings. Democratic incumbent Jim Matheson was challenged by Mia Love (R) in the most Republican district in the country currently occupied by a Democrat.[8]

Using the Federal Election Commission's October Quarterly campaign finance filings, the Brennan Center for Justice at The New York University School of Law published a report on October 22, 2012 focusing on the 25 House races rated most competitive by The Cook Political Report, including the race for Utah's 4th. The report examined the relative spending presence of non-candidate groups, candidates, and small donors in these races - "which will likely determine which party will control the House."[9]

Democratic convention

In the April 21, 2012 Democratic convention, delegates confirmed Jim Matheson as the Democratic nominee for Utah's 4th.[11][12] Matheson was unopposed at the convention. There was no primary for the 3rd District.[12]

Republican convention

In the April 21,, 2012 Republican convention, the party nominated incumbent Mia Love to be the Republican candidate in the general election. Mia Love and Carl Wimmer advanced as the top two vote-getters in the first round, and in the second round, Love received 70 percent of the delegate votes.[13] No Republican primary was held for the 4th Congressional District.[12]

***Note: After the poll was released, the Salt Lake Tribune announced that the poll revealed a flawed oversampling over Republicans which caused skewed, less accurate results.[14]The polls above may not reflect all polls that were conducted in this race. Those displayed are a random sampling chosen by Ballotpedia staff. If you would like to nominate another poll for inclusion in the table, send an email to editor@ballotpedia.org

Campaign contributions

The race attracted $2.6 million in outside spending between Labor Day and late October before the general election. $744,916 was spent helping Democrat Jim Matheson while $1,882,725 was spent to aid Republican Mia Love.[15]

District partisanship

FairVote's Monopoly Politics 2012 study

In 2012, FairVote did a study on partisanship in the congressional districts, giving each a percentage ranking (D/R) based on the new 2012 maps and comparing that to the old 2010 maps. Utah's 4th District became less Republican because of redistricting.[21]